BEETHOVEN AND MOZART - WEST ROAD CONCERT HALL
Should we ban Beethoven for an entire year? This was the sardonic suggestion of conductor Timothy Redmond between pieces in the latest Cambridge Philharmonic series. His point was that if we allowed Ludwig van to self isolate, it would show us all how much we would miss him. This of course is not going to happen. In this 250th anniversary year we are going to be regaled with all things Beethoveny and I can’t think of a better life-affirming tonic in these very dark days. Certainly last night’s concert filled the substantial audience with pure unalloyed joy.
The incredibly full programme started with a personal favourite: the Leonore Overture No. 3. For reasons beyond my ken, I always sing its exciting allegro theme out loud when stepping into a hot shower. Don’t ask me why – surely more appropriate would be Respighi’s ‘Fountains of Rome’ or the Spring downpour bit in Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons’.
There is no warming up with this brilliant orchestra – from the off, there was pure music drama as Beethoven’s dark tones suggesting the heroine Leonore descending the steps of dungeon to save her lover, Fidelio, gripped the musical imagination. The overture is more an instrumental summary of the entire opera with those sinister musings (Fidelio about to be executed) to heroic rescue and the vanquishing by justice over evil. The Phil’s reading was utterly mesmerising; powerful and tender in turns. Thrilling stuff.
The next piece up was a revelation. Beethoven’s little-performed Elegischer Gesang (Op. 18) for chorus and orchestra. The composer dedicated the piece to a young friend’s wife who had died at the age of only 24. This was a deeply moving elegy played and sung with exquisite tenderness and musical balance: each word in the German text came across clear as an alpine stream. The short work was followed by the climax of the first half – and what a piece it is – masterpiece is a more accurate description.
Our conductor told the audience that Beethoven’s Choral Fantasia (again not oft performed) was written to conclude a mighty fundraising concert for the maestro in 1808. That famous night in Vienna saw the premier of Beethoven’s Fifth and Sixth symphonies, his ground-breaking Piano Concerto No. 4 and this work. Redmond told us that it must have been like being at the premier of Macbeth, Hamlet and Midsummer Night’s Dream all in the same evening. Young pianist Florian Mitrea was the last-minute replacement soloist for the indisposed Martin James Bartlett. The piece begins with an extended solo for the piano that is quite extraordinary – surely echoes here of Mozart yes but prescient suggestions of Chopin and even Rachmaninov (composing 100 years later). Mitrea not only played with muscular style and poetic delicacy, but he was clearly enjoying every bar – swaying into the melodies, beaming at the orchestra, restless in his musical rests -eager to get playing. The Fantasia bursts out in all unexpected directions: four soloists sing the words – a paean to the power of music, the huge Philharmonic chorus gets a good go and the orchestra play cat and mouse with the piano. It was bubbling, energetic and packed with good humour, so much so that by the interval everyone was smiling (no easy feat in this current climate). The Phil were up to the huge forces required to make this all work; Redmond performed miracles in keeping Beethoven’s joyously nuts musical extravaganza in perfect order (more than could be said for the first performance we were told).
The second half was all Mozart. Mitrea returned more than earning his fee with the Piano Concerto No. 23. Again it was a pleasure to watch as well has hear this great young pianist. He lived every moment of the happy work not least the buoyant ‘car chase’ of the final presto with piano and orchestra galloping into the sunny uplands.
The huge evening of music making ended with Mozart’s Coronation Mass. Back on came the four soloists Anna Mengel, Julia Portela Pinon, Aaron Godfrey and Michael Ronan. Placed behind the orchestra which made them a bit hard to hear at times, they nevertheless sang with power and sweet harmony. The chorus provided the rich beef stew and as I have come to expect, the orchestra was on top form. Whatever is banned over the next months please let it not be the Cambridge Philharmonic (or Beethoven).
